“The iPhone maker has pursued numerous lawsuits against hardware makers who use Android, claiming they rip off its own designs,” Lessin reports. “Mr. Schmidt, 57 years old, recently sat down to discuss a potential antitrust suit, the Google-Apple rivalry, and whether he would consider a government post.”

Some snippets:

WSJ: How has Google’s relationship with Apple changed in the past year?Schmidt: It’s always been on and off. Obviously, we would have preferred them to use our maps. They threw YouTube off the home screen [of iPhones and iPads]. I’m not quite sure why they did that. The press would like to write the sort of teenage model of competition, which is, ‘I have a gun, you have a gun, who shoots first?’ The adult way to run a business is to run it more like a country. They have disputes, yet they’ve actually been able to have huge trade with each other. They’re not sending bombs at each other. I think both Tim [Cook, Apple’s CEO] and Larry [Page, Google’s CEO], the sort of successors to Steve [Jobs] and me if you will, have an understanding of this state model. When they and their teams meet, they have just a long list of things to talk about.

WSJ: Are Apple and Google discussing a patent-related settlement?Schmidt: Apple and Google are well aware of the legal strategies of each other. Part of the conversations that are going on all the time is to talk about them. It’s extremely curious that Apple has chosen to sue Google’s partners and not Google itself.

WSJ: Do you see Apple’s Siri virtual assistant as a competitor to Google search?Schmidt: Well, it’s competition. I mean, in the antitrust filings, we actually use Siri as an example of future “non-conforming to the Web” competition , which we do worry about.

If Apple were run like a certain country it would not have $150 billion in the bak, but instead would be $16 trillion in the hole, headed to $30 trillion. If Apple were run like a certain country, it’s current prices would all expire December 31st, with no rational way of determining what next years prices will be. If Apple were run like a country, every shopper would pay a different price, depending on how much income they had.

I am glad Apple is not run like a country. But rather, like a shining example of free market, Western capitalism.

OK, ‘publicskool’… While it’s true that the rich and poor both take entitlements, there’s a crucial difference between the two: The rich PAID for all those entitlements – and then some. So, it’s not really an entitlement for them, is it? More like you pay for your iPhone, then get it a few decades later, huh.

How are there “record subisides” of oil companies when the oil companies are the largest payers of taxes to the state and Federal Government. I am pretty sure the oil companies, and their customers, subsidize the government, not the other way around. Now, all of Obama’s energy subisides are true subsidies, as he only gives money to companies that make no profits and which generally go bankrupt after laundering about $500 million in taxpayer dollars per company. Now, that is subsidy to complain about. Oh, coincidentally, the Obama subsidies are all to companies that are run by big Obama donors, till they go bankrupt.

Bullshit. Do a search online for: oil companies dodge paying taxes
You’ll find article after article about oil companies being allowed to pay little to no taxes, based on tax systems put in place by the politicians they bought and paid for (read: “all of them”).
Seriously, all of you dopes who swear allegiance to the Democrat or Republican flavor of crony-capitalism (not democracy anymore!) make me sick. You are the problem. You are the reason the corporate powers-that-be have managed to distract us into these red-versus-blue games while they steal away our freedoms.
Wake up and recognize who your real opponents are.

@krioni – Stupidity can be cured. You can look at the public filings of the Oil companies. They pay in excess of $1 billion per quarter in taxes. They are among the most heavily taxed industries in existence. If they didn’t pay, the current Marxist In Charge would certainly prosecute. Now, deal with the handouts Obama is doling out to his cronies who run fraudulent “green” companies that lose billions of taxpayer dollars before filing bankruptcy. Geez!! Public schooling doesn’t produce much anymore.

Blue states = makers, Red states = takers. Look it up. The majority of makers voted for Obama. Look it up. It’s the Plutocrats, the Billionaires, the 1 percent of the 1 percent who paid for their tax code, paid for their congressmen, and they’ll be damned if they don’t follow directions. Look it up. Red states by and large enjoy the entitlements that blue states provide, yet, they vote against their best interests because of some deranged, ill-informed, Fox News-faith in Guns and Religion.

“Reproductive rights”?? Where do you come up with this. My mom had full reproductive rights when I was born 58 years ago. Now, she was not so infantile as to “demand” that her neighbor pay for her condoms, because my mom was not a useless idiot, like those who make these demands today are. Or, by reproductive rights, do you mean the right to “kill” your unborn child?